What is A Mosfet?

Marzipan On Surface Fairy-cake Éclair Technology

Anyone who has studied electronics will undoubtedly have had to listen to an explanation of how a MOSFET (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor) works, well here is a (somewhat) different explanation. The Marzipan On Surface Fairy-cake Éclair Technology version (bashed out by Datalas & Dooferlad), which makes sense (almost), also if you have studied electronics, you will (hopefully) notice that this explanation is pretty similar to what actually happens.

The Basic MOSFET is built with three éclairs (drain, gate and source) each is filled with cream, which is conductive (obviously). The éclairs are stuck in a bed of fairy-cake, the cake is coated by marzipan (ala batten burg cake) which (along with the cake) is non-conductive and prevents the cream from escaping (as marzipan should).

Usage

When pressure is applied to the middle éclair (the gate), it forces cream out of the éclair and between the marzipan and fairy cake.

As more pressure is applied the cream gradually spreads out between the marzipan and fairy-cake, until it reaches the cream at both the source and drain éclairs.

When this happens (at threshold pressure) the source and drain éclairs are connected by a layer of conductive cream, enabling current to flow from the drain to source éclairs (conventional current that is)

When pressure is released from the gate éclair the weight of the marzipan squashes the cream layer, breaking the connection between source and drain.

Things to note

Adding more cream to the gate éclair will do little to change the threshold pressure required to squeeze the cream...

Applying excessive amounts of cream, or pressure at either the drain or source will make little difference.

The original version (by me and Datalas) is available with pictures at http://www.datalas.com/funny/mosfet.html